Interpretive Summary: Monitoring the health and condition of rangeland vegetation can be very time consuming and costly. An efficiency but rigorous sampling protocol is needed for monitoring sagebrush/grassland vegetation. A randomized sampling protocol was presented for geo-referenced, nadir photographs acquired using digital charting techniques in extensive rangeland areas (e.g., ecological sites). This protocol holds great potential for reducing the field time and labor costs which currently preclude resource managers from conducting full and rigorous assessments of rangeland health and condition.

Technical Abstract:
Monitoring the health and condition of rangeland vegetation can be very time consuming and costly. An efficiency but rigorous sampling protocol is needed for monitoring sagebrush/grassland vegetation. A randomized sampling protocol was presented for geo-referenced, nadir photographs acquired using digital charting techniques in extensive rangeland areas (e.g., ecological sites). Digital charting allows for rapid field collection of imagery data and provides systematic coverage of the area of interest. Random sampling among the acquired imagery provides statistical rigor to the monitoring results. This random sampling protocol holds great potential for reducing the field time and labor costs which currently preclude resource managers from conducting full and rigorous assessments of rangeland health and condition.